Mr. Wylie, my tenth grade history teacher, was also the public address announcer at all of the home high school football games. He had been the announcer for many years, and continued to be for several years after I left high school. At some point during every halftime, Mr. Wylie would give the crowd an update on the football season of the Austin College Fightin’ Kangaroos, his alma mater. Almost no one cared. But that’s what made it so interesting. Mr. Wylie gave the updates anyway. He didn’t care who cared. He cared, and that was enough. [NB: There was a four-year stretch that overlapped with my last two years of high school when people’s ears perked up a bit more during these halftime announcements. A former Kilgore Bulldog went on to play football for the Fightin’ Kangaroos. He was a much loved local boy, and so there was some interest in how the Roos were doing. This local boy went on to become a doctor and should have been revered more for that than football, but we’re talking about Texas here, folks. Football is king!]

I feel like Mr. Wylie sometimes when I blog. A couple of weeks ago I posted some things about new music I was interested to hear. I’ve often posted on music that I am listening to. [“Last weekend the Fightin’ Kangaroos lost a tough one to the Tigers of East Texas Baptist University.”] This week I’d like to return to another interest of mine: soccer. [“The Fightin’ Roos ran away from the Southwestern University Pirates on Saturday.”]

The MLS season started this past weekend and had some pretty amazing goals. And according to one poll interest in MLS is growing among  teens, reaching the same level of interest as MLB. Of course, some have called out the poll as BS, but I don’t care! [“The season for Austin College has been up and down. Last week was a bye week for the Fightin’ Kangaroos, who hold hold a 3-3 record midway through conference play.”]

All of the above is really a build-up to this recommendation: If you are like me and fairly new to the sport of soccer, I highly recommend the video channel at MLSsoccer.com “Between the Lines,” especially the “Soccer Jargon 101” series of videos. The most recent one on “The Evolution of Formations” is a quick history lesson of soccer strategies. [“The Fightin’ Kangaroos ended an otherwise mediocre season on a high note, defeating the Tigers of Trinity University 35-7.”]